The director of the National Counterterrorism Center, the primary US organization responsible for analyzing terror threats, told NBC News that the nation is probably not "tactically" safer from the threat of terrorism following the invasion of Iraq.
Asked by reporter Richard Engel if the war in Iraq had created a "giant recruiting tool" for terrorists, Center head Scott Redd said that "in the short term, that is probably true. But the question is you've got to look at this, I believe, in the long term strategic view."
"Tactically, probably not," Redd said in response to a question about whether the US is generally safer after having invaded Iraq. "Strategically, we'll wait and see."
An investigation by Engel into the motives of accused terrorists in Iraq -- many of whom previously held ordinary jobs prior to the US invasion -- indicated that America's presence in the country was a motivating factor in inspiring attacks.
Interviewing prisoners at a police detention center in Baghdad, Engel found that "to a man, each one says that it's the American occupation of Iraq that has driven him to violence."
"An aggressor occupied my country, destroyed it and made millions refugees. It is an honor to fight this," said one detainee, a construction company owner who admittedly attacked US troops.
"The US says this is war is part of a global war on terrorism," said another man, an imprisoned engineer. "But people here say the war has increased fanaticism and brought terrorism to Iraq."
"It's the same message Al Qaeda fighters and supporters have told NBC News in Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and Saudi Arabia," Engel's report continued. "But in Washington a month ago, we found a completely different message."
In a conversation with chief White House counterterrorism advisor Fran Townsend, the reporter was told that the US was not at an increased security risk because of Iraq.
"The threat level would have continued regardless of whether or not we were in Iraq, and in some ways I think the threat level would have been worse, because we would have had them there," said Townsend.
"It would have been worse had we not invaded Iraq?" Engel clarified.
"Absolutely," Townsend said.
In an interview with MSNBC about his investigation, Engel said that his conversations with Middle East terrorists indicate that the war has "given a whole new younger generation a fight that they can go to."
"Iraq, they can actually come here, they can take part in it and then go back to their home countries, " he said. "According to analysts we have spoken to and members of the organizations, they say the war in Iraq has helped Al Qaeda tremendously."
The following video clips are from NBC Nightly News, broadcast on October 14, and MSNBC's News Live, broadcast on October 15.
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Oil prices surged as high as $86 a barrel Monday for the first time after OPEC said crude production by non-member countries is likely falling even as global demand for oil is rising.
Prices were also supported by concerns that Turkish forces will pursue Kurdish rebels into Iraq, disrupting oil supplies, and by technical buying by investment funds.
Despite the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries' decision last month to boost its production by 500,000 barrels per day beginning next month, the rest of the world will likely produce 110,000 fewer barrels of oil per day than expected in the fourth quarter, OPEC said in a report.
At the same time, fourth quarter demand for crude oil will grow by 100,000 barrels a day over last year, OPEC said.
The estimates add to sentiment that crude supplies are tight. Last week, the Energy Department reported that domestic crude inventories fell during the week ended Oct. 5 when they had been expected to rise. And the International Energy Agency concluded that oil inventories held by the world's largest industrialized countries have fallen below a five-year average.
"The fact that U.S. crude inventories fell yet again ... reinforced the market's underlying concern that demand has yet to slow down sufficiently to allow stocks to build, while supply is also perceived to be struggling to catch up," wrote Edward Meir, an analyst at MF Global UK Ltd., in a research note.
Light, sweet crude for November delivery jumped $2.44 to settle at a record $86.13 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange after rising as high as $86.22, a record trading price.
Despite the gains, oil is still below inflation-adjusted highs hit in early 1980. Depending on the adjustment, a $38 barrel of oil in 1980 would be worth $96 to $101 or more today.
In other Nymex trading, gasoline futures rose 7.24 cents to settle at $2.1575 a gallon, while heating oil futures rose 6.08 cents to $2.3072 a gallon.
Nymex natural gas futures rose 47.1 cents to settle at $7.445 per 1,000 cubic feet on forecasts for cooler weather next week in the Northeast and Midwest, and on worries a storm in the Caribbean Sea will move north and gain strength, threatening key oil and gas infrastructure in the Gulf of Mexico.
In London, Brent crude futures rose $2.20 to settle at $82.75 a barrel on the ICE Futures exchange.
At the pump, gas prices fell 0.4 cent overnight to a national average of $2.757 a gallon, according to AAA and the Oil Price Information Service.
The Turkish government's decision on Monday to ask Parliament for permission to pursue Kurdish rebels into Iraq stoked worries that hostilities will disrupt oil supplies, analysts said.
"Oil out of the northern (Iraq) fields has been erratic for some time," said Linda Rafield, senior oil analyst at Platts, the energy research arm of McGraw-Hill Cos. "But complete disruption would definitely be bullish for this market."
Technical buying by investment funds is also driving oil's record run, analysts say. Data released Friday show that speculative buying of oil contracts increased last week.
Many investment funds automatically buy or sell oil futures when prices hit certain levels. In recent days, as oil has pushed into new record territory, several of these resistance prices levels have been broached. That triggers new buying, driving prices even higher.
"Funds tend to trade more on the technicals," Rafield said.
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The nation's three largest banks said Monday they are teaming up to create a rescue fund of sorts -- potentially as large as $100 billion -- to help bail out troubled global credit markets.
Citigroup Inc., Bank of America Corp., and JPMorgan Chase & Co., at the prodding of the Treasury Department, will buy distressed debt from markets roiled during the summer's financial crisis. The joint effort is the result of more than a month of talks mediated by the government.
The plan is designed to inject more confidence into the market and increase investor appetite for the short-term debt known as commercial paper. The market for commercial paper, which is crucial for companies to fund short-term borrowing needs and which has historically been considered very safe, locked up this summer.
That followed a crisis in the mortgage industry, as people defaulted on their home loans at a skyrocketing rate. It caused a widespread aversion to risk and led the Federal Reserve to pump money into the financial system, though the latest plan relies more heavily on the banks themselves.
It was not known how much money would be put into the fund, but there have been reports it could be between $80 billion to $100 billion. Each bank will put up an unspecified amount of its own capital into the fund.
"The problem is festering and I think they are trying to get ahead of it," said Professor Scott Stewart of the Boston University School of Management. "This is exactly what they should be doing -- accepting responsibility instead of asking the government to bail them out."
Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, who met personally with chief executives from all three banks, said he's pleased with the plan and "that it will have real benefits to the marketplace."
The government's role in coming up with a private-sector solution to the nation's credit problems is similar to the bailout of hedge fund Long-Term Capital Management in 1998. The Fed approached Wall Street's biggest banks to rescue LTCM before its wrong-way financial bets set off a financial shockwave.
This time around, the banks hope to not only prevent credit problems from spreading, but also to bail themselves out. Many banks operate structured investment vehicles, known as SIVs, that collectively are said to have as much as $400 billion worth of assets. Those assets could plunge in value and set off a worldwide fire sale unless the credit markets are stabilized.
The SIVs used short-term commercial paper, sold at low interest rates, to buy longer-term mortgage-backed securities and other instruments with higher rates of return. With the seizure in the credit markets, many SIVs had trouble selling new commercial paper to replace upcoming obligations on older paper.
The new bailout fund -- called the Master Liquidity Enhancement Conduit or M-LEC -- would launch in the next 90 days and be used to buy distressed securities from SIVs. That would in turn give them the capital to pay off their commercial paper obligations, and ultimately extricate themselves from what otherwise might have been substantial losses.
By buying SIVs' distressed investments, the new fund would inject enough liquidity into the market to make investors more confident in buying commercial paper. The funds' backers said they will shy away from risky instruments and buy only highly rated asset-backed debt -- a market that is already beginning to show signs of life.
JPMorgan Chase and BofA do not operate SIVs, but will put money into the fund because they'll earn fees for helping arrange transactions. However, Citigroup has about $100 billion tied into SIV investments, and took the lead during discussions with the government.
Citigroup Chief Financial Officer Gary Crittenden said Monday the plan "could provide reassurance to the market and make the funding of very high-quality assets a little easier."
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Federal authorities are actively investigating dozens of American television stations for broadcasting items produced by the Bush administration and major corporations, and passing them off as normal news. Some of the fake news segments...
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Ron Paul won the GOP presidential straw poll conducted by organizers at the Conservative Leadership Conference held at the Nugget Casino this weekend “by a large margin,” according to an organizer. Mitt Romney Shows Up In Person and Comes in 4th overall
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Today, the Washington Post publishes additional details about the Bush administration’s warrantless wiretapping, noting that the National Security Agency approached Qwest “more than six months before the Sept. 11 attacks.” But the Body Politik points out that President Bush has claimed that the program was put in place in response to 9/11
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Pentagon investigators thought they had discovered a major shipment of contraband when they intercepted parts for F-14 Tomcat warplanes headed to Iran, via FedEx, from Southern Calif. They were astonished to discover 13,000 other aircraft parts, as well as a list of additional requests by an Iranian military officer and two plane tickets to Tehran
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There are some alarming signals and trends that are making economists very nervous that we are hurtling towards another economic crash. On Friday’s Bill Moyers Journal, guests Robert Kuttner and William H. Donaldson spoke on the parallels they see, especially as it relates to the giant inequities brought on by under-regulated hedge funds.
WILLIAM DONALDSON: Absolutely. The SEC is– that’s its role: investor protection. And a protection of the markets themselves, to make sure that they’re being run properly.
ROBERT KUTTNER:And I would add that there are two purposes to regulation. One is to protect investors; the other’s to protect the whole system from systemic risk, from meltdowns. And when people talk about George Soros can take care of himself, people forget that other purpose of regulation, it’s to protect the whole system. And the other problem is that pension funds and university endowments and– the endowments of charities are now investing in hedge funds. So it is funds that sort of–
BILL MOYERS: That scare you?
ROBERT KUTTNER: –little– terrifies me.
BILL MOYERS: Terrifies you.
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Aides to State Department Inspector General Howard Krongard threatened two investigators with retaliation this week if they cooperate with a congressional probe into Krongard's office, the chairman of a House of Representatives panel and other U.S. officials said Friday.
The allegations are the latest in a growing uproar surrounding Krongard. Current and former officials in his office charge that he impeded investigations into alleged arms smuggling by employees of the private security firm Blackwater and into faulty construction of the new U.S. Embassy in Baghdad.
Krongard has denied the charges and is due to appear before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee next month.
In a statement e-mailed to reporters Friday, his office said it was cooperating with investigators.
"The Office of the Inspector General has cooperated with and will continue to cooperate with the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee's investigation," the statement said. "Furthermore, the OIG will continue to make any OIG employee available to speak with the committee, if they choose."
Officials at the State Department and other agencies said support for Krongard appeared to be slipping and that it remained uncertain whether he could keep his job. They spoke on condition of anonymity, because Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice hasn't made a final decision in the matter.
The probe into Krongard's office is being led by Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., the chairman of the House oversight committee.
The two investigators said they were threatened with retaliation — perhaps including losing their jobs — if they cooperated, Waxman said in a letter to Krongard.
According to the letter, Krongard's congressional liaison told one of the two, Special Agent Ronald A. Militana, "Howard can fire you. It would affect your ability to get another job."
In a telephone interview, Militana confirmed that he's filed a complaint with Waxman's panel and said the congressman's letter quoted him accurately. He declined to comment further.
Militana and the other investigator, Assistant Special Agent in Charge Brian Rubendall, were among those pressing for an investigation into whether employees of Blackwater were illegally shipping automatic weapons and other military goods to Iraq without a license. Rubendall couldn't be reached for comment.
McClatchy Newspapers reported last week that two Blackwater employees have pleaded guilty in Greenville, N.C., to weapons charges and are cooperating with federal officials.
Blackwater, which has received roughly $835 million in State Department contracts, mostly to guard U.S. civilians in Iraq, is under intense scrutiny after a series of violent incidents involving its contractors. In the most recent, Blackwater teams were involved in a shooting at a busy Baghdad traffic circle Sept.16 that killed 11 Iraqis.
According to an e-mail obtained by Waxman's committee, Krongard intervened when federal prosecutors asked for help from his office in investigating the Blackwater arms-smuggling allegations.
The investigations division of the inspector general's office "is directed to stop IMMEDIATELY any work on these contracts until I receive a briefing from the (assistant U.S. attorney) regarding the details of this investigation. SA Militana, ASAIC Rubendall and any others involved are to be directed by you not to proceed in any manner until the briefing takes place," Krongard wrote to a subordinate July 11.
Krongard denied those allegations on Sept. 18 and said he'd made "one of my best investigators" available to help the Justice Department.
That investigator, Waxman wrote Friday, was Militana.
Several current and former State Department officials have sought whistleblower protection after complaining about Krongard conducted the inspector general's office, according to a U.S. official who requested anonymity.
In a related development, members of a panel that Rice set up to review State Department security operations in Iraq are due to depart for Baghdad this weekend.
The department announced that the panel, led by Patrick Kennedy, State's director of management policy, will be composed of retired Army Gen. George Joulwan, who served as NATO's supreme allied commander, Europe; former Ambassador to China Stapleton Roy; and retired Ambassador Eric Boswell, who served as assistant secretary of state for diplomatic security.
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Republican presidential candidates discussed the importance of reaching out to people of color during a minority issues debate Thursday night and criticized the leading four GOP contenders for skipping it.
"I think this is a disgrace that they are not here," said Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback. "I think it's a disgrace to our country. I think it's bad for our party, and I don't think it's good for our future."
Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee said he was "embarrassed for our party, and I'm embarrassed for those who didn't come."
The four no-shows former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, former Sen. Fred Thompson, Arizona Sen. John McCain and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney cited scheduling conflicts in saying they could not attend the debate at historically black Morgan State University.
"Fortunately, there are those in the Republican Party who do understand the importance of reaching out to people of color," said talk show host Tavis Smiley, the debate moderator, thanking the six other candidates for participating.
Besides Brownback and Huckabee, the other candidates who participated in the debate were: Reps. Duncan Hunter of California, Ron Paul of Texas and Tom Tancredo of Colorado, and conservative activist Alan L. Keyes.
The forum, which had black and Hispanic journalists questioning the candidates, was broadcast live on PBS.
The candidates answered questions ranging from what they would do to help minorities, their views on illegal immigration, the war in Iraq, minority unemployment rates and their position on capital punishment.
Huckabee said he would want his legacy in helping minorities to be more equal treatment for them in the criminal justice system. Brownback said he would continue to push for the National Museum of African-American History and Culture in Washington. Keyes spoke of bringing more religious values into schools.
Paul received loud applause when he told the audience that minorities are unfairly punished in the criminal justice system. He also called for ending the war on drugs. "It isn't working," Paul said.
Tancredo said two things have mostly hurt blacks economically and more than race: the welfare state and "the importation of millions upon millions of low-income workers that depress the wage rates."
"Those two things are responsible," he said.
Hunter said the key to securing Iraq and bringing home U.S. troops is to get Iraq's army battle-hardened and capable of defending the country from insurgents.
Among the Republicans who have criticized the leading contenders for skipping the forum are former House Speaker Newt Gingrich of Georgia, and former Lt. Gov. Michael Steele, the first black official elected statewide in Maryland.
"I'm puzzled by their decision. I can't speak for them. I think it's a mistake," Gingrich, who is considering joining the race for the GOP nomination, said this week.
Smiley also moderated a debate in June among the Democratic presidential candidates at Howard University in Washington, another historically black school.
Earlier this month, seven of eight Democratic candidates participated in a debate aired by Univision, the Spanish-language TV network. A Univision-sponsored GOP debate was canceled after only McCain agreed to participate.
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The Senate agreed on Thursday to increase the federal debt limit by $850 billion -- from $8.965 trillion to $9.815 trillion -- and then proceeded to approve a stop-gap spending bill that gives the Bush White House at least $9 billion in new funding for its war in Iraq.
Additionally, the administration has been given emergency authority to tap further into a $70 billion "bridge fund" to provide new infusions of money for the occupation while the Congress works on appropriations bills for the Department of Defense and other agencies.
Translation: Under the guise of a stop-gap spending bill that is simply supposed to keep the government running until a long-delayed appropriations process is completed -- probably in November -- the Congress has just approved a massive increase in war funding.
The move was backed by every senator who cast a vote, save one.
Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold, the maverick Democrat who has led the fight to end the war and bring U.S. troops home from Iraq, was on the losing end of the 94-1 vote. (The five senators who did not vote, all presidential candidates who are more involved in campaigning than governing, were Democrats Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and Joe Biden and Republicans John McCain and Sam Brownback.)
Said Feingold, "I am disappointed that we are about to begin the 2008 fiscal year without having enacted any of the appropriations bills for that year. I am even more disappointed that we voted on a continuing resolution that provides tens of billions of dollars to continue the misguided war in Iraq but does not include any language to bring that war to a close. We need to keep the federal government operating and make sure our brave troops get all the equipment and supplies they need, but we should not be giving the President a blank check to continue a war that is hurting our national security."
In the House, the continuing resolution passed by a vote of 404 to 14, with 14 other members not voting.
The "no" votes in the House, all cast by anti-war members, came from one Republican, Ron Paul of Texas, and 13 Democrats: Oregon's Earl Blumenauer, Missouri's William Clay, Minnesota's Keith Ellison, California's Bob Filner, Massachusetts' Barney Frank, New York's Maurice Hinchey, Ohio's Dennis Kucinich, Washington's Jim McDermott, New Jersey's Donald Payne, California's Barbara Lee, Maxine Waters, Diane Watson and Lynn Woolsey.
That means that, of the 2008 presidential candidates, only Republican Paul and Democrat Kucinich voted against giving the Bush administration a dramatic -- if not particularly well publicized -- infusion of new money for the war.
"Each year this war is getting more and more costly --- both in the amount of money spent and in the number of lives lost. Now this Congress is providing more funds so the administration can continue down a path of destruction and chaos," said Kucinich, who noted the essential role of House and Senate Democratic leaders, such as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, in passing the continuing resolution. "The Democratic leadership in Congress needs to take a stand against this President and say they will not give him any more money. That is the only way to end this war and bring our troops home."
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An ultra-secret conservative group -- so secret that members don't even use the group's name in communications -- will feature Vice President Dick Cheney as a speaker at a meeting in Utah today.
"Cheney will address the fall meeting of the Council for National Policy, a group whose self-described mission is to promote 'a free-enterprise system, a strong national defense and support for traditional Western values," according to the Salt Lake City Tribune.
Founded in 1981 by Tim LaHaye, the co-author of the popular post-apocalyptic Christian-themed Left Behind books, the group holds confidential meetings three times a year attended by a small but powerful cadre of top conservatives.
"The media should not know when or where we meet or who takes part in our programs, before of after a meeting," one of the group's rules reads, according to a New York Times profile of the organization in 2004.
"The membership list is 'strictly confidential," said the Times. "Guests may attend 'only with the unanimous approval of the executive committee."
"In e-mail messages to one another," the paper continued, "members are instructed not to refer to the organization by name, to protect against leaks."
"We do not lobby Congress, support candidates, or issue public policy statements on controversial issues," the group states on its website. Members "meet to share the best information available on national and world problems, know one another on a personal basis, and collaborate in achieving their shared goals."
"Czech Republic President Václav Klaus is also expected to address the Council for National Policy's meeting in downtown Salt Lake City," the Tribune reports, adding that GOP presidential hopeful Mitt Romney will also be in Utah, but did not respond to the paper about whether or not he would be attending the meeting.
"Many current and former members politely said they would prefer not to speak on the organization's behalf," ABC's Marc Ambinder said in an earlier behind-the-scenes piece focusing on the group. "Those who did respond to telephone and e-mail messages declined to talk about their interest in the organization. More than a dozen did not respond at all."
Cheney's speech and other events of his trip, which coincides with a fundraising swing through West, is closed to the public and the press, according to the Tribune.
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2000 $204,911
2001 $736,906
2002 $3,415,884
2003 $25,395,556
2004 $48,496,902
2005 $201,010,119
2006 $593,075,845
2007 2Q * $187,297,239
Total dollars: $1,059,633,363
For 11 years, Pedro Zapeta, an illegal immigrant from Guatemala, lived his version of the American dream in Stuart, Florida: washing dishes and living frugally to bring money back to his home country.
Two years ago, Zapeta was ready to return to Guatemala, so he carried a duffel bag filled with $59,000 -- all the cash he had scrimped and saved over the years -- to the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport.
But when Zapeta tried to go through airport security, an officer spotted the money in the bag and called U.S. customs officials.
"They asked me how much money I had," Zapeta recalled, speaking to CNN in Spanish.
He told the customs officials $59,000. At that point, U.S. customs seized his money, setting off a two-year struggle for Zapeta to get it back.
Zapeta, who speaks no English, said he didn't know he was running afoul of U.S. law by failing to declare he was carrying more than $10,000 with him. Anyone entering or leaving the country with more than $10,000 has to fill out a one-page form declaring the money to U.S. customs.
Officials initially accused Zapeta of being a courier for the drug trade, but they dropped the allegation once he produced pay stubs from restaurants where he had worked. Zapeta earned $5.50 an hour at most of the places where he washed dishes. When he learned to do more, he got a 25-cent raise.
After customs officials seized the money, they turned Zapeta over to the Immigration and Naturalization Service. The INS released him but began deportation proceedings. For two years, Zapeta has had two attorneys working pro bono: one on his immigration case, the other trying to get his money back.
"They are treating me like a criminal when all I am is a working man," he said.
Zapeta's story became public last year on CNN and in The Palm Beach Post newspaper, prompting well-wishers to give him nearly $10,000 -- money that now sits in a trust.
Robert Gershman, one of Zapeta's attorneys, said federal prosecutors later offered his client a deal: He could take $10,000 of the original cash seized, plus $9,000 in donations as long as he didn't talk publicly and left the country immediately.
Zapeta said, "No." He wanted all his money. He'd earned it, he said.
Now, according to Gershman, the Internal Revenue Service wants access to the donated cash to cover taxes on the donations and on the money Zapeta made as a dishwasher. Zapeta admits he never paid taxes.
CNN contacted the U.S. Attorneys office in Miami, U.S. Customs and the IRS about Zapeta's case. They all declined to comment.
Marisol Zequeira, an immigration lawyer, said illegal immigrants such as Zapeta have few options when dealing with the U.S. government.
"When you are poor, uneducated and illegal, your avenues are cut," he said.
On Wednesday, Zapeta went to immigration court and got more bad news. The judge gave the dishwasher until the end of January to leave the country on his own. He's unlikely to see a penny of his money.
"I am desperate," Zapeta said. "I no longer feel good about this country."
Zapeta said his goal in coming to the United States was to make enough money to buy land in his mountain village and build a home for his mother and sisters. He sent no money back to Guatemala over the years, he said, and planned to bring it all home at once.
At Wednesday's hearing, Zapeta was given official status in the United States -- voluntary departure -- and a signed order from a judge. For the first time, he can work legally in the U.S.
By the end of January, Zapeta may be able to earn enough money to pay for a one-way ticket home so the U.S. government, which seized his $59,000, doesn't have to do so
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Burma’s generals silenced the Buddhist monks yesterday morning.
For a week and a half, the monks had been on the streets of Rangoon in their tens of thousands, and their angry calm gave courage to the people around them.
But overnight, they were beaten, shot and arrested, and locked in their monasteries. Handfuls of them emerged yesterday – two or three brave individuals, a dozen at most – but nothing to approach the mass marches of the previous nine days. Everyone felt their absence.
You could see it in the faces of the civilian demonstrators who took to the streets anyway, in defiance of the official warnings.
You could see it too in the swagger of the riot police, banging their batons menacingly on their shields as they advanced.
The monks were moral shields; without them the marchers had lost a lucky charm. They felt less like crusaders for justice and more like what they resembled – scared, angry kids in T-shirts facing well-drilled troops with automatic weapons.
They stood their ground as long as they dared, too long for some of them. At least nine people were killed, according to patchy reports, and eleven others injured. The dead included a Japanese photographer.
So far, though, this does not yet appear to be a repeat of the massacres of 1988, when 3,000 were mown down on the streets. The junta is showing patience and restraint, it is plotting its moves step by step, and it is displaying a subtle and malignant cunning.
In the Mwe Kya Kan pagoda in the South Okkala district of Rangoon, it began at 2am, but seven hours later the evidence was plain to see – a dozen thick patches of congealing blood and human tissue splashed about the yard. The windows of the monks’ dormitories were smashed jaggedly by the impact of rubber bullets – hard, round spheres fired from green cartridges that the monks had carefully gathered up and put on display.
Inside everything had been smashed – the thin plywood walls, the monks’ plaster statues of the Buddha – and the thin mattresses were soaked with blood.
“We had to flee for our lives into the neighbourhood,” said a small bespectacled young man named Ashin Thu, one of the few monks to have evaded arrest. “A family let me hide in one of their houses, I was so scared.”
The bullets may have been rubber, but at close range they can still do great damage. Seventy monks were driven away bleeding in 24 military vehicles and, to judge from the pools of blood in the yard, several of them were gravely injured.
Most outrageous of all, in the eyes of the survivors, was the theft that the soldiers had carried out. They took money from locked boxes and carried off a gold statue and a hoard of golden rings. And so it becomes clear why the Government has imposed an eight-hour overnight curfew. It was not to protect the city from “terrorists”, but to prevent its citizens bearing witness to its own crimes.
Similar raids – with beatings, terror and arrests – were reported in at least three other monasteries. Several senior members of the National League for Democracy (NLD), the political party of the Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Aung San Suu Kyi, were also rounded up overnight.
At 9am yesterday I had an appointment to meet U Myint Thein, the gracious and gentlemanly spokesman of the NLD. But U Myint Thein was otherwise engaged – in the headquarters of the police special branch, who took him away from his home in the middle of the night.
By the afternoon, there were troops stationed in monasteries all over the city. For Buddhists, there is an element of sacrilege in this, as well as simple bad manners. These were men of violence, fresh from acts of violence, who were imposing themselves on places dedicated to peace. At Moe Kaung Pagoda, the olive-uniformed troops wore red kerchiefs around their necks. It is the belief of many of the demonstrators that this is a sign that they are permitted to shoot to kill. But the killing was to take place elsewhere, on the road that leads south towards the Sule Pagoda, the second-most famous in Rangoon after the mighty golden Shwedagon. By noon, thousands of people had gathered at a crossroads which had been sealed off by soldiers, riot police and barbed wire barricades.
Around 1pm the police began moving forward, and the soldiers followed. Warnings were issued through loud-speakers on the roofs of vans.
Then, amid impenetrable confusion, shots were fired, as well as smoke grenades. It would be inconsistent with the behaviour of the security forces during the rest of the day if these had been live rounds, aimed to kill. But one man, apparently a photographer, was seen by witnesses to drop suddenly, as if shot. His limp body was lifted on to a military truck and carried away.
The crowd scattered and ran to reform a few hundred yards up the road. Banging their shields, the riot police advanced again with the loud-speaker van behind them.
The message was both crude and courteous. It included an honorific form of the Burmese word for “you”, and might be translated like this: “Good sirs, please leave the area or we will open fire in ten minutes time.”
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Russia is ready to take appropriate measures if weapons are deployed in space, the commander of the Russian Space Forces said Thursday.
"Should any country deploy weapons in space, then the laws of armed warfare are such that retaliatory weapons are certain to appear," Col. Gen. Vladimir Popovkin said.
He said Russia and China have drafted an international declaration on the non-deployment of weapons in space and sent it to the UN.
"It is necessary to establish the rules of the game in space," he said, adding that the deployment of weapons in space could have unpredictable consequences, since such weapons are "very complex systems."
"A sizable war could break out," the commander said.
He said space must not be the sphere of interests of any one country.
"We do not want to fight in space, and we do not want to call the shots there either, but we will not permit any other country to do so," he said.
Popovkin also said that Russia has an integrated missile attack warning system, covering the country's entire territory.
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With the U.S. government fast approaching its current $8.965 trillion credit limit, the Senate on Thursday gave final congressional approval of an $850 billion increase in U.S. borrowing authority.
The Senate voted 53-42 to raise the debt ceiling to $9.815 trillion, the fifth increase in the U.S. credit limit since President George W. Bush took office in January 2001. The U.S. House of Representatives approved the higher debt limit earlier this year as part of the overall budget resolution and the legislation now goes to Bush for his signature.
"We have no choice but to approve it. If we fail to raise the debt ceiling soon, the U.S. Treasury will default for the first time in its history," said Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus.
"Plainly, especially in this credit crisis, we cannot let that happen," the Montana Democrat added.
The U.S. Treasury Department has been pressing Congress to pass the debt increase quickly. Last week Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said the government would hit its current $8.965 trillion debt limit on Oct. 1.
But Sen. Tom Coburn, an Oklahoma Republican, urged lawmakers to reject the debt increase and concentrate on spending cuts instead.
"Families across America don't have the luxury of loaning themselves any money when they've maxed out their credit. But that's what we're going to do," Coburn said.
Lawmakers said the $850 billion increase in borrowing authority, the second largest since Bush took office, should be enough to last the government through next year's congressional and presidential elections.
U.S. debt stood at about $5.6 trillion at the start of Bush's presidency.
"Increasing the debt limit is necessary to preserve the full faith and credit of the United States of America," said Iowa Sen. Charles Grassley, the senior Republican on the Finance panel. (Additional reporting by Richard Cowan)
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MSNBC's David Shuster marvelled on Tuesday that anti-war libertarian Rep. Ron Paul "has managed to develop a huge fan base online ... especially among college students" in his bid for the GOP presidential nomination.
There are almost 30,000 Ron Paul videos on YouTube, and Paul has more than 64,000 friends on MySpace. Many articles about Paul on RAW STORY have received unusually high numbers of hits at story-recommending sites like Digg and Reddit, as well. (For example, Ron Paul: Republicans need Reagan's courage, MSNBC's Tucker Carlson invites Ron Paul to give 'freedom tutorial', and Ron Paul teams up with Dem candidate to end war.)
"I can't explain it," Paul told Shuster. "I'm bewildered but surprised and pleased as anybody else. But all I can say is maybe the message of liberty is very popular with young people."
Paul said that if he had the kind of money the front-runners enjoy, he would use it to promote his message of a non-interventionist foreign policy and personal liberty. "We don't need the Patriot Act, and we don't need warrantless searches and we don't need secret prisons," Paul stated.
Paul said he would support the Republican nominee in 2008 only "if I can find one that'll take the same position I have on the war, that we ought to end it and come home." When asked what he would do with his growing support if he is not the nominee, he answered, "I guess the question is, what are they going to do with me?"
"They've sort of joined me spontaneously, and I'm delighted, but I would work hard to keep them together and to continue the process," Paul continued. Though he cautioned that he had no interest in a third party candidacy, he emphasized that "this group of people now can be very influential. ... I don't think this is going to be just put away. I don't think we can close these ideas off."
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Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates told Congress on Wednesday that he envisioned keeping five combat brigades in Iraq as a “long-term presence.”
Mr. Gates told the Senate Appropriations Committee, “When I speak of a long-term presence, I’m thinking of a very modest U.S. presence with no permanent bases, where we can continue to go after Al Qaeda in Iraq and help the Iraqi forces.”
He added that “in my head” he envisioned a force as a quarter of the current combat brigades.
There are now 20 combat brigades in the country, a number that is scheduled to drop to 15 by next summer. Mr. Gates has previously expressed hope that if security conditions in the country continue to improve, force levels in Iraq could drop to 10 brigades by the end of 2008.
Mr. Gates gave no timetable for reaching that force level or for how long the forces would be required to stay. He added that there had been no detailed planning by the Pentagon about what level of forces would be required on a more or less permanent basis.
A combat brigade has 3,500 to 4,500 soldiers, leaving a minimum of 17,500 combat troops in Iraq under the plan Mr. Gates described. The total American force required would probably end up being at least twice that, because of the need for support troops and other related personnel.
Mr. Gates also laid out at the hearing a Bush administration request for an added $42 billion for war-related expenses in 2008. The request increases to nearly $190 billion the amount the Bush administration is seeking for 2008 to finance military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. In February, the administration asked for $141.7 billion for the wars, an amount that officials said at the time was an estimate that could increase.
The Appropriations Committee chairman, Senator Robert C. Byrd, a Democrat from West Virginia, responded with blistering criticism of the administration’s Iraq strategy and warned that his panel would not “rubber stamp” Mr. Bush’s requests for war financing.
“The president and his supporters claim that we’re now finally on the cusp of progress and that we must continue to stay the course,” Mr. Byrd said. “I’ve heard that before. Call me a skeptic, but we have heard this tune before. Yes, haven’t we?”
Antiwar protesters in the hearing room responded with cries of “Yes! Yes!”
Mr. Byrd later had the room cleared of protesters after they disrupted an answer by Gen. Peter Pace, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Mr. Gates said $11 billion of the requested money was for building 15,000 heavily armored vehicles designed to better withstand the roadside bombs that cause the majority of American casualties in Iraq.
The Pentagon also seeks $9 billion to repair and refit American equipment stocks. The administration is also requesting $1 billion to train Iraqi security forces, bringing the total 2008 request for training funds to $5.7 billion.
But Mr. Gates said that American troops, “under some of the most trying conditions, have done far more than what was asked of them, and far more than what was expected.”
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